Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy again came to the defense of embattled Lenny Wilkens yesterday before his club faced the Knicks last night at the Garden.

Holding court for more than a half-hour, the former Knicks coach riffed on the unfairness of blaming the head coach when the losses pile up.

“It’s not New York, it’s just how it is,” Van Gundy said. “It’s a blame game, you get a result, the mentality is whose to blame. Who’s an easier target than the coach? I find that unfortunate. When you look at Lenny Wilkens, he’s proven to be an excellent coach wherever he’s been.

“If you’re not going to give him all the credit for the wins, he shouldn’t be getting all the blame when he loses. I don’t understand. It’s a player’s league when you win and a coach’s league when you lose.”

Van Gundy’s Rockets entered the night at 21-19, holding the eighth and final Western Conference playoff spot. If they were in the Atlantic Division, they’d be comfortably ahead.

“If I could move Houston . . . ,” Van Gundy joked. “The West, there’s going to be three, four very good teams that won’t make it. In the East, there’d probably be a couple not so good teams that make it.”

The Knicks were on a four-game losing streak and had fallen out of playoff position. Considering their $103 million payroll, it’s a disgrace. But unlike his brother Stan Van Gundy, Jeff Van Gundy doesn’t believe a high payroll necessarily translates to a great record.

“Just because you have talent, doesn’t mean you have a team,” Jeff Van Gundy said. “And just because you have talent doesn’t mean you have difference-makers. Everyone in this league has talent. I hate when I hear people in this league say I don’t understand why we don’t win [when] we have talent. That’s exactly why you lose – because you don’t get it. Everybody’s got talent, you idiot.

“It’s all those little things that go into winning,” Van Gundy added. “Are your best players your best workers? Are your best players your most unselfish? Are your best players tough? Do they play in pain? Are they your best practice players?”

When Van Gundy last graced the Garden, his Rockets bombed the Knicks early and prompted the first “Fire Chaney” chants during a 111-79 blowout win on Jan. 8, 2004. Don Chaney was fired days later, bringing on the Wilkens Era.

“Don and I worked together and when I worked as head coach, he was very supportive,” Van Gundy said. “I’ve talked to him a couple of times he’s down in Houston. It didn’t end well. I know one thing he’s happier now. That’s what matters.”

Now a Wilkens Watch is on.

“Coaching in New York, I didn’t feel the same way others do,” Van Gundy said. “I liked the scrutiny. I liked the passion. . . . When you’re doing well, you got to take the good with the bad. When you play a bad game and somebody’s screaming at you or writing about you, that’s part of it too.

“I felt the New York fans were really, really fair to me and same thing about the media. The biggest 99 percent of the people were fair. When it was going good, they said it was going good. When it was going badly, they said it was going bad. Some people would personalize it more than that.”

The Rockets have gone 15-8 since early December to rally from being five games under .500. But when told his team was on a roll, Van Gundy debated the point.

“I’ll still argue the premise,” Van Gundy said. “Us and the Knicks are similar in that we’re struggling to try to break though mediocrity.”

Of course, the current Knick regime doesn’t seem to mind mediocrity, judging by Isiah Thomas’ recent remark in which he said the Knicks were “probably a .500 team, maybe a little better,” before adding, “That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”